Recent Opinions

It’s time to call all of these hate acts against people of color what they are: acts of terrorism. We must stop tiptoeing around this word, terrorism, which makes us uncomfortable, because the use of the word “terrorism” to describe the actions of part of the American population will make its perpetrators aware of our hypocrisy.

Growing up, I longed for people to view me as intelligent. I loved being associated with the adjective smart, and I, in turn, also complimented others’ intelligences freely. It wasn’t until later that I realized how damaging and invalidating that simple praise could be.

Elections Commissions completes petition verifications

ASSU Elections Commissioner Stephen Trusheim ‘13 released the results of the petitioning process, which closed last Friday at 4 p.m., in an e-mail to current ASSU officials, candidates and special fees group officers on Tuesday afternoon. All executive slates, senior and sophomore class president slates and Undergraduate Senate candidates received enough verified signatures to appear on April’s ballot.

Of the 15 groups required to petition for an increase in special fees funding, 11 gathered enough verified signatures to appear on the ballot. The Stanford Journal of International Relations, the Progressive, Harmonics and STAMP did not receive enough signatures.

The final ASSU ballot will feature three executive slates, two senior class president slates, five sophomore class president slates, 39 Senate candidates and 52 special fees groups. Forty-one groups were not required to petition after receiving approval for their requested budgets and increases from the Senate and GSC.

The ballot has not been officially finalized by the Elections Commission and will not be final until the Voter Guide is released 21 days before the election begins.

Two of the Executive slates — “Cruz & Macgregor-Dennis for Exec” and “Tenzin-Vasquez” — qualified for public financing after receiving a minimum of 100 signatures apiece from the undergraduate and graduate student populations. The third slate, “Hertz-Coggeshall Family for Excellence,” which is backed by the Stanford Chaparral, made the ballot with paper signatures but will not receive public financing.

The last item on the ballot is an advisory referendum entitled “Measure A — Advisory Question on ROTC,” which will ask voters if they support the return of ROTC to Stanford’s campus. Both the Senate and GSC approved the measure earlier this quarter. The referendum is non-binding; its purpose is to advise the Faculty Senate’s ad hoc committee tasked with investigating ROTC’s return.

However, the referendum may not appear on the ballot, pending the result of a Constitutional Council case initiated by Alok Vaid-Menon ’13, president of Stanford Students for Queer Liberation (SSQL). Vaid-Menon contends that the referendum violates the ASSU’s anti-discrimination statutes. SSQL has been among the most vocal opponents of ROTC’s return on the grounds that the program violates the rights of transgender students, as they are not allowed to serve openly in the military.

ASSU President Angelina Cardona ’11 will defend the referendum, which she authored, when the Constitutional Council hears the case this evening. The hearing will be at 8 p.m. in Kehillah Hall on the second floor of Koret Pavilion, and will be open to the public. The council will render its decision within three days of the hearing.

“The ballot measure is moving forward unless the Constitutional Council rules otherwise, as the measure has qualified for the ballot already,” Trusheim wrote in an e-mail to The Daily. “Innocent until proven guilty; Constitutional until proven otherwise.”

The deadline for declarations of intent and petitions for GSC candidates and junior class president slates has been pushed back to Mar. 18, which is the last day of finals week. No junior class president slate had entered the race at the time of publication.

For the four special fees groups that did not receive sufficient signatures, the ASSU Constitution empowers the Senate and GSC to push back the petitions deadline if there are “extenuating circumstances.” This grace period could allow those groups to gather enough signatures to appear on the ballot.